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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Book Review

So, some of you might have noticed me go a little bonkers making some bags lately. I've REALLY enjoyed making those bags..I mean REALLY! But a girl can only make so many Ayumi bags (not that I'm going to stop making those!) before she might want to branch out and try another kind of bag. So while at B&N this weekend...I picked up this book:

and WOW! WOW! Seriously...WOW! What a FANTASTIC book! Ok...let me start out by saying that I NEVER planned on making bags, never thought it would interest me, no way-no how. However, after the Ayumi bags, I really wanted to do more. But I really needed a recipe with clear, easy to follow instructions. And this book has them!

The first portion of the book has a great breakdown on some basics like understanding patterns, inserting different types of zippers, constructing different straps, use of snaps, etc. All very helpful for me as I haven't worked with any of them before.

So after reading the book cover to cover pretty much (SO MANY CUTE BAGS!), I decided to try out this one:

The Access-All-Areas Pouch. And ta-dah, here it is (modeled by Girl, who is now the bag owner as she thought it was adorable and fantastic and some other stuff):

and the inside:

I must confess, I didn't cut the fabric properly, so I didn't have quite enough left to make the inner pockets as called for in the pattern. So after reading it a few times, I figured why not go with what I did manage to have left. So I ended up adding a little Pellon 911FF to give it a little more structure (not much, just a smidge more) and lining the pocket with some muslin I had buried in my stash. and the pocket worked out perfectly (just the right height for a cell-phone).

The instructions were very easy to follow. I worked with clear vinyl...yeah definitely a new experience there, and now I feel ok doing it. I was able to add two zippers (in two different ways) and played with a new Pellon (for me), Pellon 72F, which I found to work great for the "extra-stiff, double-sided fusible interfacing" called for in the book.

The ONLY complaint I would have is really against me, I didn't read the instructions properly for the eyelets, so the bag almost got scratched out of frustration with the eyelet not setting properly.

I'm loving this book! I'm looking forward to making another bag out of the book (in particular the Too Cool for School Satchel!). I very highly recommend this for anyone interested in making bags!

Legalese:I purchased this book myself, on my own. I was not provided this book nor compensated in any way for this review. All opinions presented are MY OWN!